Ubuntu phone out in October

It looks like a release date has come for mobile phones which use the Ubuntu operating system.

Mark Shuttleworth, founder and CEO of Canonical said the phones should be in the shops by October. Application developers will have access to the smaartphone operating system, which is optimised for the Galaxy Nexus handset manufactured by Samsung Electronics in late February. Shuttleworth seemed to be talking a lot about having Windows-based apps streamed to them from corporate servers which means users could access all manner of corporate data through a single, pocket-sized device.

Windows, iOS and Google ’s Android, are at least slightly different versions of the same operating systems running tablets or PCs, and those differences often mean the same data can’t run on all three form factors, he said. The other problem it might have is that while it makes sense for a business to adopt Ubuntu smart phones, BYOD users are probably going to want something more marketed to consumers, like something from Samsung and Apple.

Mr. Shuttleworth said the new phone operating system will be available in two large geographic markets in October, and while he didn’t commit to North America being one of those, he said North America is “absolutely a key market for Ubuntu.” He said the operating system has drawn interest from carriers as well, many of which are eager to break up the smartphone market hegemony of Apple and Google. Shuttleworth declined to identify carrier or handset partners.